I love gorgeous lockets like the ones above. I purchased one myself, but haven't yet managed to reverse engineer how it was made.

My question is, how how how can I make them? What technique is being used to get the gorgeous pictures onto the lockets? Is it some kind of image transfer? Where would I find them, and how could I use them?

I know this would be a great way to make super cool personalized gifts for friends. Can somebody tell me how these are made, and with what materials?

You could try the image transfer forum. But one way to do it would be to print the images onto image transfer paper and apply it onto the surface in some way - such as a resin adhesive perhaps. It may be harder to do it on a curved surface. I would be tempted to see if I could find lockets that have a bezel or lip to do that with. If that is the case, then you could print laser prints onto transparencies and embed them in resin, or make packing tape transfers or something like that.

Otherwise, if they are all metal, you could get low temp glass/ceramic/metal paints, like those put out by Pebeo, and pain them yourself directly onto the surface. I have heard that some of the Sharpie oil paint pens can work the same way as well, but I have worked with the Pebeo line and know that it works.

I'm thinking decals. You can buy decal paper, print from your computer, then water-transfer the image; the gold (or whatever) color of the locket would show through. You'd probably need to put a tough finish on the top so they don't get scratched.